Monday, October 30th, 2006
Ok – my preference for installations of SBS2003 is to do a totally fresh installation. However there are times when this is not possible due to budget contraints or time limitations. I’ve had two such customer scenarios this week that needed to have the inplace done, one for budget reasons, and the other for time constraints. So we’ve used the inplace upgrade method. Before using the in place upgrade method I’d considered a few things.
1. Did I install SBS2000 on this system? I look at this as I want to ensure that it’s a system that I’ve controlled for it’s life. If I didn’t install it then there may be a heap of underlying issues just waiting to bite me.
2. Is the hardware capable to run SBS2003 for the next 2-3 years. In the case of the systems I’ve done this week, both were for 5 user sites, one was a 2.4Ghz system with 1GB RAM which was fine, the other was an 800Mhz system with 1GB RAM which was at the very low end of what I wanted. I advised the 800Mhz customer of this and he was fine – wants to replace the server next financial year anyway.
So here’s the process I followed in these upgrades this week. Both of them had RAID 1 using software mirroring, so we disconnected the mirrored drive before we commenced as our utlimate backup plan, and then later once it was done and we knew the upgrade was 100% we reconnected it and reconfigured the mirror.
Preflight Check these can all be done prior to the day of the upgrade to minimise the downtime
Check workstations if any Win95 or Win ME then upgrade can not proceedCheck SBS2000 Service Pack levels must have SBS 2000 SP1 installedMinimum 2GB Free on C: DriveEnsure ISA SP1 is installed (v3.0.1200.50 if no SP, v3.0.1200.166 SP1)Install hotfix for ISA for W2003 Server (ISAHF255.exe KB331062)Download and unpack the latest supportpaq from HP for the serverClean up drives, delete files not needed and empty recycle binDefrag drives (if time permits do this remotely)Verify backups are good
Rollout ProcessEnsure the Internet NIC is disconnectedDisconnect the mirrored hard drive (if it s a dual drive mirrored system)Remove any UPS cables to the serverRemove Exchange IMRemove Admin toolsRemove AV softwareRemove Scanmail for ExchangeRemove Trend Client from the serverRemove OfficeScan Corporate Edition from the serverRebootNote any specific config options that need to be reinstated later
a. Exchange forward all mail to specific hostCHKDSK /f on all hard drivesSave and clear event logsReboot serverCheck event logs note / decide on action about ANY errorsInsert SBS2003 CD1 and commence setupDuring the W2003 installation portion of setup, if it asks you for drivers for the HP/Compaq server, insert the SmartStart CD as it has the drivers the system needs.Phase 2 of the SBS SetupReboot and complete the To Do listDo not do step 6 of the to do list Import Files as we don t use this optionDetune ISA securityRemove the authenticate all users from the outbound web listenerWindows Update & rebootReview loginscripts to ensure that they are correct and do not have any additional characters in themTest one workstation on LAN verify access to email, files etcInstall ISA FP1, ISA FP1 URLSCAN (isafp1ur.exe), ISA SP2Install Trend AV & configureInstall GZIP Hotfix, E2003SP1 and Post SP1 SBS HotfixModify hardware firewall to add additional ports and protocols443,444,4125Shutdown and configure the mirror the original hard drive
Workstation rollouts Assign applications to all workstations from the SBS console wizardsRemove old AV & rollout the new AVAdd users to be able to logon remotely via RWW on the desktop computers
Verify all AV clients are seen in the AV console
Tags: Installation, SBS 2000, SBS 2000 SP1, SBS 2003 Premium, SBS 2003 R2 Premium, SBS 2003 R2 Standard, SBS 2003 SP1 Premium, SBS 2003 SP1 Standard, SBS 2003 Standard
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Sunday, September 10th, 2006
Jeff Middletons whitepaper on Bare Metal Restore and the hidden flaws within it
What is the problem with Bare Metal Restore.zip
Tags: SBS 2000, SBS 4.5
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Sunday, September 10th, 2006
Exmerge 3.7 for Exchange 5.5
Tags: SBS 2000
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Sunday, September 10th, 2006
TechEd 2006 Australian presentation on Disaster recovery. This presentation was originally prepared by Jeff Middleton – www.sbsmigration.com
SBS 2003 R2 Disaster Recovery.ppt
Tags: SBS 2000, SBS 2003, SBS 2003 Premium, SBS 2003 R2, SBS 2003 R2 Premium, SBS 2003 R2 Standard, SBS 2003 Standard, SBS 4.5, TechEd 2006 Australia
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Monday, June 27th, 2005
Most people know about using logon scripts, but few know that you can actually put in place a logoff script which is executed when the user logs off the network. So what can you do with these scripts? Things like using them to delete temporary files various folders etc and clearing out things like that from the computer that the user has used.
The following MS KB articles apply to Windows 2000, but equally apply to Windows 2003 and Small Business Server 2003
How to assign scripts in Windows 2000
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;322241
Overview of Logon, Logoff, Startup and Shutdown Scripts on Windows 2000
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;198642
Tags: Administration, SBS 2000, SBS 2000 SP1, SBS 2003 Premium, SBS 2003 R2 Premium, SBS 2003 R2 Standard, SBS 2003 SP1 Premium, SBS 2003 SP1 Standard, SBS 2003 Standard
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Sunday, September 7th, 2003
I’ve configured my internal domain as company.com despite Microsoft’s best practices suggesting I call it company.local and now when I attempt to go to our externally hosted website atwww.company.com I get 404 errors. The website works just fine if I connect to it from the outside world. How can I resolve this?
In order to do this you need to add an A record to your internal DNS server on SBS2000 or SBS2003. To do this use the following process.
1. Start the DNS Management console by Start > Programs > Administrative Tools > DNS
2. Drill down into the SERVERNAME, then Forward Lookup Zones and then your domain name.
3. Right click the domain name folder and select New Host from the menu
4. Enter www into the Name box
5. Enter the external IP of the website as provided by your ISP or web hosting company and click Add Host
You should now be able to access your external website located at your ISP.
Tags: Internet Access, SBS 2000, SBS 2000 SP1, SBS 2003 Premium, SBS 2003 R2 Premium, SBS 2003 R2 Standard, SBS 2003 SP1 Premium, SBS 2003 SP1 Standard, SBS 2003 Standard
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Wednesday, July 9th, 2003
August 17, 2002 – SBS 2000 SP1 http://www.microsoft.com/sbserver/downloads/sp1.asp
July 11, 2003 – SBS 2000 SP1a -http://www.microsoft.com/sbserver/downloads/sp1a.asp
Tags: SBS 2000, SBS 2000 SP1, Service Packs
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Wednesday, July 9th, 2003
Microsoft released SBS Service Pack 1a shortly after releasing Service Pack 4 for Windows 2000. SP1a includes all the same inclusions as SP1 did, but they have replaced Windows 2000 SP3 with SP4. You can obtain SBS SP1a fromhttp://www.microsoft.com/sbserver/downloads/sp1a.asp
Tags: SBS 2000, SBS 2000 SP1, Service Packs
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Friday, May 9th, 2003
User password security is always important, but the single most important user account on your network is the Administrators account. For the best security, the password for this account MUST be a combination of upper and lower case letters, numbers and punctuation and ideally 8 characters or more. This will provide a password that is very hard to guess using dictionary lookups or brute force password attacks.
Changing the Administrators password is also relatively simple, but varies depending on the server environment that you have.
Windows NT 4.0 Server
On a simple NT4.0 server network, you can change the administrators password using NT User Manager.
SBS 4.0 and 4.5
These versions of SBS include Exchange Server and the account used to run the exchange server is the administrators account, therefore you can’t simply use the NT User Manager as if you do then it will result in the Exchange Server services not starting when you next reboot your server. Always change the administrators password via the SBS Administrator console – under the covers, the console will also alter the default Exchange Server services to use the new password and you will not have any problems.
SBS2000 and SBS2003
These systems are less reliant on the administrator account password and as such you can change the password using the Active Directory Users and Computers management console.
Other considerations for ALL systems
In addition to actually altering the password, don’t forget that there may be other services in the system that rely on the Administrator password, common programs include;
– Antivirus software for access to the internet via the Proxy or ISA server,
– Backup programs which have the password saved in the backup script,
– SQL Server – if you have altered it’s services to run under an account different from the default LocalSystem account.
– Scheduled Tasks via the inbuilt task scheduler
Tags: Administration, SBS 2000, SBS 2000 SP1, SBS 2003 Premium, SBS 2003 R2 Premium, SBS 2003 R2 Standard, SBS 2003 SP1 Premium, SBS 2003 SP1 Standard, SBS 2003 Standard
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Wednesday, April 23rd, 2003
When you perform the initial installation of SBS2000, you get to choose the location and size of the ISA Server cache. There is no wizard in SBS to change these post-installation. The following procedure will allow you to manually change the location and size of these files which can improve performance of your ISA server if you access a large number of pages from the ISA Server cache.
1. Run the SBS Administrators Console
2. Expand the Internet Security and Acceleration Server 2000 node on the tree.
3. Expand Servers and Arrays node
4. Expand the Server node
5. Expand the Cache Configuration node
6. Expand the Drives node
7. On the right hand pane you will see your server name along with the total amount of space dedicated to ISA Server caching on the whole server.
8. Right click on the Server name and select Properties
9. Here you can select a drive to put the ISA server cache files on and specify a size for the files on that drive. You need to press the Set button after each entry. You can split the ISA cache files across multiple drives, but you have no real control over what content goes into which drive cache, so the only real benefit here is to give yourself more space for ISA cache in a tightly packed system. After you set the size, then press OK to make the changes complete.
Tags: ISA Server 2000, SBS 2000, SBS 2000 SP1, SBS 2003 Premium
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